4 ms·

A gas pump fills a car at 20 MW, many gas stations operate at capacity for many hours a day with a dozen pumps active. EVs are ~4 times as efficient, but even b

by ouid 3y ago

A gas pump fills a car at 20 MW, many gas stations operate at capacity for many hours a day with a dozen pumps active. EVs are ~4 times as efficient, but even being very generous, you've still got gas stations with the sustained power draw of an industrial arc furnace. This is not a trivial infrastructure problem to overcome. Very high power draw like that requires very high voltage transmission, which is dangerous and difficult. Plug in hybrids are an extremely sensible intermediate step, and perhaps the only feasible endpoint. They solve almost every problem that electric vehicles solve, and also almost every problem that electric vehicles have.

PuffinBlue 3y ago
Nah, solutions are already built and operating: https://youtu.be/FoN4WCpuxHY https://youtu.be/FoN4WCpuxHY Pretty easy to stick a big battery in between grid and cars and balance the load. Not to mention you can’t top up your gas car at home everyday like you can an EV. EV charging will end up far more distributed than gas car filling. I actually worked in a gas station for quite a while. Demand is never constant 24 hours a day. There are always peaks and troughs as the daily cycle of life revolves. EV charging will be just fine.
- ouid 3y ago
  load balancing doesnt work like that. the draw on a high throughput gas station is hundreds of megawatts for hours. Are you proposing 100MWh batteries installed at charging stations? Sure people can top up their cars overnight, but what about people who street park? Charging a tesla battery to full overnight (16hr) is still 5kW. On the other hand in the world where gas is very expensive, and you have a PHEV, you can pkug in most of the time and solve almost all of your gasoline demand, while still being able to fill your car at 20MW in critical situations
  - PuffinBlue 3y ago
    > the draw on a high throughput gas station is hundreds of megawatts for hours. Did you watch the video? For a 36 charger station they’re using a 6Mw battery. It works because the assumption that draw from the chargers is constant is wrong. > What about people who street park? They can go to the charger station. And all the people who don’t need to because they do it at home…don’t go to the charger station. Reducing demand even further. > Charging a tesla battery to full overnight Do you use your entire gas tank everyday? Because 90+% of vehicle users don’t. So there’s no need to pull that much power, again reducing peak demand and spreading out the load. The things you are highlighting are rooted in fear, not reality. The reality is that ev’s work without the downsides of PHEV. And i say that as a ICE owner jealous of the ease of use, lower maintenance and savings being made by friends with ev’s.

by ouid 3y ago

PuffinBlue 3y ago

Nah, solutions are already built and operating: https://youtu.be/FoN4WCpuxHY https://youtu.be/FoN4WCpuxHY Pretty easy to stick a big battery in between grid and cars and balance the load. Not to mention you can’t top up your gas car at home everyday like you can an EV. EV charging will end up far more distributed than gas car filling. I actually worked in a gas station for quite a while. Demand is never constant 24 hours a day. There are always peaks and troughs as the daily cycle of life revolves. EV charging will be just fine.

ouid 3y ago
load balancing doesnt work like that. the draw on a high throughput gas station is hundreds of megawatts for hours. Are you proposing 100MWh batteries installed at charging stations? Sure people can top up their cars overnight, but what about people who street park? Charging a tesla battery to full overnight (16hr) is still 5kW. On the other hand in the world where gas is very expensive, and you have a PHEV, you can pkug in most of the time and solve almost all of your gasoline demand, while still being able to fill your car at 20MW in critical situations
- PuffinBlue 3y ago
  > the draw on a high throughput gas station is hundreds of megawatts for hours. Did you watch the video? For a 36 charger station they’re using a 6Mw battery. It works because the assumption that draw from the chargers is constant is wrong. > What about people who street park? They can go to the charger station. And all the people who don’t need to because they do it at home…don’t go to the charger station. Reducing demand even further. > Charging a tesla battery to full overnight Do you use your entire gas tank everyday? Because 90+% of vehicle users don’t. So there’s no need to pull that much power, again reducing peak demand and spreading out the load. The things you are highlighting are rooted in fear, not reality. The reality is that ev’s work without the downsides of PHEV. And i say that as a ICE owner jealous of the ease of use, lower maintenance and savings being made by friends with ev’s.